Gods, I admired her.
The way she stood there—hair wild, eyes blazing, shoulders squared against the wreckage of the sea god’s wrath—she looked like a storm given shape. Not a gentle breeze, not a passing squall. A tempest. The kind that could drown the world and still stand unshaken in the aftermath.
Every time Anika fought, she did it with her whole being—fury, grace, defiance—and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Even now, with the scent of smoke still clinging to the air and the faint shimmer of evaporated seawater marking the creature’s death, I found myself studying the way her chest rose and fell. The faint tremor in her fingers. The stubborn spark that refused to die in her eyes.
She wasn’t just powerful—she was alive in a way no god ever truly managed to be.
And for the life of me,
